Every type of food is unsustainable now

Ireland and it’s farmers have done the following very very well -

Convinced tax payers to subsidise an industry that would collapse without the tax payer.

Convinced the Irish tax payer that it is ok to export the subsidised meat for top dollar while importing cheaper meat for Irish consumers.

People need to wake up and stop believing the marketing.

https://www.irishtimes.com/science/2023/02/02/beef-is-not-sustainable-so-why-are-we-subsidising-it-for-export/#:~:text=Some%20studies%20show%20that%20beef,with%20land%20use%20is%20counted.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493708#Comment_120493708

There still pumped with it all, I don’t think a lot of it is necessary. What’s sustainable about that?

Fertiliser use is Only a fraction because we are a small island, yet it is put on nearly every acre of land in the country.

Big rains come and it’s washed away into rivers, streams ponds etc. Absolutely devastating stuff for biodiversity. Don’t no what’s sustainable about that. Same with the slurry ban.

All standard encouraged practices though from Teagasc.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494005#Comment_120494005

Most of those horrorbstories you read about animals "pumped full", of antibiotics are from intensive farms in the US.

Irish beef and dairies are not in the same ballpark, the same planet as those in the US. Few if any farmers here will be so lax about use of antibiotics (for starters because of the price)

Run off into waterways is a big issue, poor spreading practices and bad drainage management (drains made steep, cleared of all growth so water flows faster).

There are groups working to fix this but they don't have the resourcing or funding to make an impact countrywide yet.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493432#Comment_120493432

Of the people,

By the people,

For the people.

kneemos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120492956#Comment_120492956

You'll fart more.

silverharp

not eating bugs

truthseekerxz

you’ll take my ‘cados from my cold dead hands

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493728#Comment_120493728

Beef fat makes better chips, is healthier than a lot of seed oils ..and is largely a by product of our large scale beef industry ,

Which is a by product of our large scale dairy Industry .. which in itself isn't that wonderful environmentally, it's not terrible but it's large scale modern farming ..

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494769#Comment_120494769

Saw insect burgers in the freezer in the supermarket the other day ,

I wont say never - but there'd have to a definite chill in the air in hades for me to go there -

In honesty most insect production is going to be using low grade byproduct / food waste to produce bugs and larvae for high grade protein for animal food ,

Think pigs ,poultry ,fish farms ...

Markcheese

Actually a lot of the Omnivours we used to feed meat processing by-products to before we got clever and started feeding sheep and cows to ruminant sheep and cows and manged to create BSE,

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494875#Comment_120494875

The amount of processing to make a bottle of rapeseed oil would put you off the stuff forever.

Whereas beef fat and lard are just rendered animal fat.

Markcheese

And nicer too 😁

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494226#Comment_120494226

No lad there’s huge usage of medication’s used on animals here I’ve worked on farms & used to live on farm for year’s.

We don’t use allot of what they use but we still use far too much.

Proper grassland management would help solve a lot of our problems.

Too often I see maybe 20 or 30 cattle or sheep having free roam in a big 20 or 30 acre field

patnor1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494984#Comment_120494984

Try to fry meat or chips in pork lard and you will not buy bottle of oil again. Polish shops carry a selection of it or you can make your own.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494893#Comment_120494893

I believe if you see E120 on a food label, its for some insect derived food additive. Not for me, just a gimmick to sell low quality food for a high margin

timmyntc

https://www.crowniron.com/oilseed-processing/canola-rapeseed-processing/

this is the stuff they sell as 'vegetable oil', and also what 90% of fast food restaurants will use in fryers.

More eco friendly? Maybe, if you don't mind the huge rapeflower monocultures

Healthy? Not a chance

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495467#Comment_120495467

e120 is cochineal, it's a common food colouring. i don't think there's anything 'low quality' inherent in the name e120.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495585#Comment_120495585

Other websites will tell you rapeseed oil is very healthy. Takes a lot less land to make rapeseed oil than animal oil too. Ireland is one vast monoculture to feed cows by the way.

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493947#Comment_120493947

Agriculture is subsidised across the Western world not just in Ireland. You should advocate for the subsidies to be stopped immediately and then see how the planets eight billion souls are fed .

What could possibly go wrong ?

elperello

Grow your own spuds peel them and chip them.

Grow your own rapeseed and cold press to make oil.

Cook the chips on a range fired by timber you grew and cut.

Sustainable chips 🙂

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495654#Comment_120495654

Growing crops like rape is almost all mechanised - tilling the soil releases more co2, fields are typically larger than those for animal rearing with less hedgerows between as a result. And most decent dairies or beef will now seed clover and other grasses, not a monoculture strictly speaking. Much better than the alternative - have a look at some of the larger wheat or barley farms in this country if you want an idea of how not eco-friendly modern arable farming is.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495818#Comment_120495818

Careful now, don't try talking sense or using any of that aul logic and go against the narrative!

magicbastarder

i once did a back of the envelope calculation, that a hectare on an hazelnut farm in SE england produces 20 times the calories per year, that an average hectare used for beef production does in ireland.

we do well for beef/dairy etc. here because we're extremely good at growing grass. but being more efficient at a particular method of production than others is not the same as producing food efficiently.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495834#Comment_120495834

A hectare in SE England is practically another climate compared to our wet, windy and overall mild isle.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495654#Comment_120495654

wouldnt trust it, rapeseed oil started out as an engine lubricant company looking for a new use, its highly processed with chemicals and has a poor Omega 6/3 ratio. While it could be a total coincidence the switch to these kinds of oils which are in everything these days is also when obesity related conditions skyrocketed in the 80's.

Grass fields are a lot more insect, animal friendly and more sustainable than fields of mono crops

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495893#Comment_120495893

yeah but they take up far more room. worldwide, if our calories consumed came from plants rather than farmed animals, the planet would be in far better shape. don't forget that most farmed animals eat from food produced in fields of mono crops too, ireland imports millions of tonnes of animal feed every year.

bit of a pointless discussion anyway as we wont be stopping the intensive farming of animals any time soon but there's no getting around the fact that animal farming has far more impact on land used than farming plants.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495915#Comment_120495915

Theres far more to food than calories.

If its just calories youre concerned about, we should all be eating some U235.

20million calories per gram!

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495940#Comment_120495940

i don't eat beef anyway and i bet i'd beat you in an arm wrestle 😬

tayto lover

If the Greens get their way we'll soon not be allowed to laugh at them.

j2

Wait until you find out that everything "green" is also backed up by a long chain of fossil fuel use.

The biggest problem all agriculture is facing is the destruction of our top soil.

We need about a ton of food a year to sustain a healthy human being.

BUT

We are creating about 10 tonnes of dead eroding soil to achieve that. Clearly we are going out of business.

paddysdream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494005#Comment_120494005

I am probably farming longer than you have lived and to be honest slurry would be a very apt description of the above post.

Fert. is 700 to 900 a ton so its unlikely people are gonna spread it and see it being washed away.Usage of it in Ireland has declined significantly over the past decade and we actually need less than other countries per acre/hectare as our soil and climate is much more suitable for growing grass (and it certain parts cereal crops) than a lot of the world.Irish grass and corn yields are pretty decent compared to much of the world.

The slurry ban ?Care to expand on your issue with that ?

I can assure you cattle and sheep are not "pumped " full of whatever.Antibiotic use is strictly regulated in this country and meat is regularly tested for residue.Anti microbials are almost impossible to get a script for.All antibiotic sales are through a registered premises and only given on the production of a vet. script.This will be an individual animal specific script.Routine dry cow tubing is gone without vet script and even wormers are becoming much more tightly regulated.

If you wish to comment on a topic at least have a little knowledge.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495940#Comment_120495940

It takes 700 million years to get 10 million calories so I'll pass.

Baasterd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494875#Comment_120494875

Yes spot on, beef fat if from grass fed cattle is on many levels a lot better for you than processed vegetable oil...but mention frying anything in dripping to people and they think your feeding them a heart attack, there is a huge amount of work to be done to undo the low fat, high sugar (salt) lobby that still imprinted on many.

Another great thing about frying in dripping is the crap settles to the bottom so you just let the fat solidify and scrap off the good stuff and leave the residue, rapeseed oil seems to taint faster. I personally think it adds a lovely flavour to chips but my 5yr old immediately sniffed out the difference ha... work to be done as I said!

Baasterd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494893#Comment_120494893

GiGo applies in food as much as data right...garbage in, garbage out....with you on the insects view!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120497262#Comment_120497262

What was wrong with what iv said?

If you’ve been around as long as you say then you’ll surely notice the alarming decline in biodiversity in this country.

Im mid thirtys & even i have seen it since my childhood.

But I look forward to absolutely tearing this apart.

Chemical Fert is spread from January, When the country is in its wettest season. A fair portion of it gets washed away when it rains from that time until about now in April. That’s alot of rain falling on the land.

The slurry ban problem is its closed in October till January. You could have brilliant weather in those months but can’t spread.

What happens In January is every farm in the country unleashes a tsunami of it onto the land no matter the weather. It gets washed away due to the Rain over the coming weeks month’s and ends up in every river & stream.

Rather than it being put on gradually bit by bit from October to January. There has to be better way of doing it than the current system.

Its my opinion that we still use far too much antibiotics or medications on our Animals. Iv worked on large scale dairy’s, beef & tillage.

We didnt have it for thousand’s of year’s and we got to where we are today. Do you think the use of these will get us to another hundred year’s even?

Only for our climate our agricultural practice’s in this country would have the land looking like Arizona.

Our non brittle environment (humidity throughout the year) helps nature cover up our damage no matter how bad we damage the land.

We need a complete paradigm shift in agriculture because the only people making money from it aren’t farmer’s.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495915#Comment_120495915

Nonsense

Animals produce food, wool, leather, huge amount of jobs.

They eat the grass, there poop fertilises the ground & new plants grow or the grasses already there continue growing again.

Growing plants Pulling carbon out of the atmosphere.

over two thirds of the worlds land can only sustain people through animal’s.

Zoom out on google maps, you can see 2/3rds of the Earth is turning to desert because we don’t have enough animals to graze the land and stop plants dying leading to bare ground that causes droughts which then cause’s the deserts.

We need animals back on the land before it’s too late.

https://youtu.be/sNDCMUgNQtg

A must watch. Just common sense

magicbastarder

Zoom out on google maps, you can see 2/3rds of the Earth is turning to desert because we don’t have enough animals to graze the land and stop plants dying leading to bare ground that causes droughts which then cause’s the deserts.

Good grief.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120497729#Comment_120497729

I didn't realise jobs and leather were good for the planet and 2/3 of the earth was turning into desert lol

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120497736#Comment_120497736

hah; when i saw the video link i thought 'i bet that's yer man savory'.

paddysdream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120497694#Comment_120497694

To be honest havent noticed any "alarming loss of biodiversity" whatever that means but perhaps you have.Maybe you could give me a few examples..

When do you think chemical fert. should be spread .Bit of a contradiction when you think slurry should/could be spread in December/January but not fert.

As you have worked on many large scale farms could you give an example of the overuse of medicine in Irish cattle/sheep.

Could you perhaps explain this paradigm shift in Irish ag. policy and what exactly we might do.

osarusan

This:

Zoom out on google maps, you can see 2/3rds of the Earth is turning to desert because we don’t have enough animals to graze the land and stop plants dying leading to bare ground that causes droughts which then cause’s the deserts.

must be one of the single most stupid things I have ever read on boards.

magicbastarder

not sure if it's the most insane thing i've read here, but definitely a hall of fame candidate.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120495951#Comment_120495951

Lol if there's any way to admit that you've lost the argument it would be claiming you win in an arm wrestling match

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498011#Comment_120498011

To be honest havent noticed any "alarming loss of biodiversity" whatever that means

good old shifting baseline syndrome.

a common example - when i were a lad (well, the 80s) if we went on holidays out west, by the time we got there the windscreen of the car would be semi-opaque with bug splatter. those days are long gone.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498050#Comment_120498050

Modern cars are both higher off the road, and more aerodynamic including the windscreens so bugs are more likely to accumulate below the bonnet near air intake if at all.

If you have a roof rack (I do) the front bar will catch a lot of insects for its size. Plastered with flies and bugs all through summer.

Also the quality of road has changed a lot since the 80s, going west is almost all motorway. Drive the old road again and you may be pleasantly surprised by the bugs

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498047#Comment_120498047

I wasn't arguing with anyone you said there's more to food than calories, this is true but I don't believe you need meat or dairy to be healthy, mostly plant calories suffice. Proof is in the pudding (me).

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498050#Comment_120498050

Isn't there like only 10% of salmon numbers returning to Irish rivers compared to the 70s too?

All this talk of sustainability and carbon footprints is useless. The data is constantly manipulated to make things seem less damaging than they are anyway

The issue is runaway human population and the needs from them. Every tick of the clock is someone who will live for average 80 years. They’ll need food, shelter, clothes, energy, medical care, education, and of course iPhones.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Unless we stop and reverse this population explosion the environmental catastrophe is inevitable. All we’re doing is delaying it while quality of life plummets.